sugar and spice
by wild-and-whirling-words
Summary: Written in response to a Tumblr prompt; Sebastian is in love with Jim, but his feelings are seemingly unreturned. He tries to move on, and his boss tries to cope with the consequences of this. Mormor. Warnings: use of expletives and sexual themes. All rights belong to Mofftiss and ACD. Please read and let me know what you think!


Thank you again to _writeallwrongs _on Tumblr for the prompt, and I hope you all enjoy. Please leave a review and let me know what you think, alternatively let me know on Tumblr (my url is _gatsby-the-good) _and if you have a prompt that you'd like to see writing, you can send those too!

**PROMPT:**

**Sebastian is in love with Jim, but Jim is still cold towards him, and so Seb concludes that Jim has no feelings for him at all. To try and move on from him, Seb takes to bringing women home at night and having one night stands with them, and Jim gets more and more angry and jealous when he sees the women wearing Seb's t shirts every morning, until finally he decides to do something about it. Eventually, after many arguments, Jim blurts out that the women don't deserve him, and he loves him.**

**WARNINGS:**

**Some use of expletives and sexual themes. **

**sugar and spice**

"What's the occasion?" The purr of Jim's voice over the sound of the radio he had playing in the background sent a thrill through Sebastian and his fingers curled reflexively tighter around the handle of the knife in his hand.

"What do you mean?" He did not look round – he did not dare – but continued in his slicing of the various vegetables set out on the counter before him, the rhythmic motion helping to calm his nerves, which were suddenly on edge. Jim took his jacket off and hung it over the back of a chair, undoing the buttons on his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves as he sank down into the seat, kicking his legs out in front of him.

"You're cooking, you never cook…" He sounded more bemused than anything, "Is there something you're after?"

(Yes, there is, but-)

"Boss, I cook every night..." Sebastian could not help the hurt that bled into his tone, "What did you think, that the pot on the stove just _appeared _in the evening?" He'd taken to making stews or other things that could just simmer on the hob so that they were still warm when Jim wanted something to eat – the man's eating habits, he swore, were ridiculous; on more than one occasion, he'd heard the flick of a light switch and the creak of the kitchen door at two in the morning and it would be the first time that Sebastian had heard any movement from him since he had got home and started cooking that evening.

Not that night though. While Sebastian threw everything together, chopped things, stirred things, tasted things, Jim sat at the table and watched and, when it was all done, they sat and ate together at the kitchen table.

It was an oddly domestic scene. They spoke very little but all the same there was an air of contentment between them like he had never felt before and it just felt right to reach over and lay his hand over Jim's. There was a prickle between their skin and, reflexively, his fingers tightened around the other man's.

When Jim did not pull away, Sebastian's heart leapt, a slow smile spreading across his face, and eyes darted up to look into his boss's. The intensity of the gaze between them made Sebastian shiver, but he leant across the table all the same, wanting to press his lips to Jim's, to know the taste of them, the feel of them.

(He'd wondered for so long…)

But Jim just smirked and tipped his head away, drawing his fingers out of Sebastian's grip nd drumming his hands against the edge of the table, utterly unrepentant as he got to his feet –

"Not now, Sebastian, Daddy's got to work!" he sang out, a malicious glint in his dark eyes as he left the room, one hand waved above his head in a sardonic farewell. _"Ta-ta…" _

"_Not now, Sebastian," _Seb mimicked bitterly under his breath, a vicious scowl twisting his at his lips as he filled the sink with scalding water and rinsed the plates. _"Daddy's too busy being a prick." _

His hand itched towards the packet of Malboros in his pocket and –

No.

Jim would flay him alive if he caught him smoking in the flat again.

_Screw Jim, _rebelled something within him and a second sly voice, also the product of his own mind, answered: _oh, you wish, darling. _

(And, yes, that was kind of it.)

With more force than was necessary, Sebastian slammed the plates down on the side, now clean and glistening with soap suds. "Shut up."

Jim's head appeared around the kitchen door. "Talking to yourself, Tiger?" His tone was silky and heavy with implication. "That's the first sign of madness…I would know…" Despite his protestations about work, the speed of his reaction suggested that his boss had not strayed very far, and the smile on his face – a slight curl of the lip as if he was laughing at a joke no one else was privy to – seemed mocking, as if he knew exactly what was going through his sniper's head.

Perhaps he did, Sebastian thought, because Jim always seemed to know everything, or perhaps it was just the way he himself was interpreting the situation – the man couldn't be a bloody mind reader, after all.

(But undoubtedly he could be a bloody tease.)

And whichever way it was, he could not stand to stay here, nerves fraying, unable to calm them by smoking, and to feel that stare boring into his back, to see those glittery eyes and that cruel mouth stretched into a grin behind his eyelids…

"I'm going out." He announced abruptly. If Jim was put out by that, it did not show; his features rearranged into a cool mask of indifference as he watched Sebastian shrug into his tan coat.

"Okay." How Seb had come to hate his boss's apathy.

"Don't wait up," he warned through gritted teeth, hands curling into fists in his pockets.

(Ha, as if he would.)

"As if I would," Jim scoffed, "I am a man who needs his beauty sleep." Sebastian saw the familiar twitch, the wrinkle of Jim's nose that gave away how irksome he found it to have to identify himself with the mass, with the commoners, the _humans. _"Have a nice time." His voice grew muffled as he sauntered away, clearly already bored by the conversation, and Seb slammed from the flat seconds later, shoelaces still undone, before he could do anything that he would regret.

That was the night it started:

Seb started bringing women back to the flat – redheads, brunettes, blondes, short, tall, big, small…a different one every night.

Jim would hear them burst through the door at all hours, whispering and giggling, he would hear them through the thin walls, moaning and swearing and fucking each other senseless and then, in the morning, he would have to put up with them there in his flat, sitting in his chair in the kitchen, giggling some more, wearing one of Sebastian's t-shirts.

It made his teeth grind and the fact that it bothered him at all was what bothered him the most, if truth be told.

(It was just because he did not want his best man, his best _employee, _getting distracted. It wasn't like he was actually fond of Sebastian…

Okay, so he liked the man, they got on; it was just irritating to have his peace and his workspace interrupted in such away. Was Sebastian unaware that they were running a top secret operation? Had he forgotten that they were criminals? Well…apparently so. But that was it, he wasn't –

Yes. He was. _Jealous._)

It went on like that for perhaps a month. Jim buried all of the uncomfortable, and frankly unwanted, emotions deep inside of him and carried on as normal but he couldn't help but watch the charade play out.

The last straw was yet another blonde girl, very similar to all the others; he never bothered to learn their names, and it was highly doubtful as to whether Sebastian did either, but she was pretty in a non-descript way, if one liked that sort of thing (which he didn't) and a bit simple seeming. This one was barely out of pigtails, he snorted derisively to himself, surveying the button-nosed blonde across the table, sitting prettily in Seb's lap, his nose nuzzling into her neck; barely out of pigtails and wearing the shirt I bought him for Christmas. Yet another snub.

The glances she kept flicking between him and Sebastian from under her fringe told him she was ill at ease in his presence, and the grin that he bared when he caught on did not help.

(Whoops.)

"What are you playing at, Sebastian?" The girl had made her excuses as quickly as she could after he had arrived and she was now in the shower. His sniper was clearly avoiding him; he'd turned his attention to the morning's paper at the first opportunity and visibly flinched at the interruption. Reluctance was evidence in the slowness with which he raised his head.

"Sorry, what?"

"You know what I mean." Jim snapped, in no mood for games. Sebastian quirked one eyebrow and glanced back down at the paper as he drew in a deep, measured breath.

"Sorry, are you…talking to me again?"

(Jim has been silent for a month, communicating by text only, even when they were both in the flat, in the same room even.)

"Don't be childish, Sebastian." And it was so rich, coming from him, that Seb laughed, actually laughed. "It's no laughing matter; I am running a very tight operation and if I can't rely on you not to get distracted…" he did not need to finish his sentence; Sebastian knew only too well what happened to loose ends.

"You can, boss," he said stiffly, "I haven't-"

"Oh, haven't you?" Jim cut across him, voice light and conversational, but with a dark edge that told Sebastian that he was not to be messed with, "So you didn't forget that this morning you are supposed to be going out on a job?"

"Nope." Reflexively he checked his watch, but he knew he had plenty of time, "The mark will cross my target point at eleven-oh-five. It's barely nine." Despite himself, Jim was impressed although his completive frown betrayed no such notion.

"And _she _will be gone by then, I suppose?" He got up from the table and wandered the length of the kitchen, fingers skimming whimsically along the counter. Sebastian returned to his paper to hide the smirk that had crept over his lips, his heart beginning to pound so hard in his chest that he was sure Jim must have been able to feel it from across the room, but he tried to keep his tone neutral, even innocent.

"What's wrong with her? I think she's nice…"

"Oh yes," Jim muttered, "Sugar and spice and all things nice, isn't that what little girls are made of?" A wicked grin descended over his features as his hand fisted around a carving knife, "Shall we find out?"

The girl – who had chosen that moment to re-emerge (and in just a towel, urgh) – was clearly not enamoured by the idea; she left rather quickly after that and Jim, with a vicious grin of satisfaction, threw the knife after her. It stuck in the door, handle quivering.

"What was that for?" Sebastian, Jim mused, sounded angry. He could not imagine why; he'd have a new girl by tonight.

"She'd outstayed her welcome," he shrugged.

Seb ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Yeah, well…I'd better get ready." He was about to turn on his heel and stamp away but Jim called him back.

"Tiger?"

"What?"

"You're forgetting something." Sebastian turned around with an expression even more exasperated than before.

"And what's that?" he asked with forced politeness.

"I haven't dismissed you yet." Jim grinned, malice alight in every visible feature, "Did the army teach you nothing? Have I taught you nothing? You belong to me. I tell you when you can go and where you can go, I've put up with your insubordination for long enough. If another one of your whores steps over my threshold, you'll kill her yourself. Do you understand that?"

"Yes." Sebastian gritted out.

"Yes what?" Jim pushed.

"Yes, _sir._"

"Better." Neither man spoke; neither man moved until Jim closed his eyes and flicked his fingers. "Go on then, get out of my sight, I'm sick of looking at you."

(All he could see was him with those women and it turned his stomach.)

Sebastian turned away again without comment, back straight, shoulders tensed. His footsteps were slow and deliberate, almost daring Jim to stop him again and say what was really on his mind, but the silence stretched out like a cord, longer with every pace he took, until his hand was on the handle of his door.

"Sebastian?" It was so quiet he almost missed it, but still it brought him to a halt.

"Yes, sir?"

"They don't deserve you, you know. They don't know you like I do, they don't love you like I do." His eyes widened in shock at the revelation, his knuckles turning white around the door handle, but he did not turn round; this was just another game, just another trick.

"You just don't like cooking for yourself," he accused, rolling his eyes, "Love hasn't got anything to do with it." Jim visibly squirmed.

"You're not going to make me say it again, are you?" he whined, "You know I'm not very good at this…emotion nonsense…" Seb gave an exaggerated shrug, a smirk turning up the corners of his lips. It was Jim's turn to roll his eyes, accompanied by a petulant frown; "Fine, fine, Sebastian, you win: I love you, okay? Although, yes, it was…inconvenient to have to rely so much upon takeaways; you are a much better cook…"

"Yeah well," Seb muttered, turning away as if this revelation was no big deal, "Compliments aren't going to get you anywhere. Maybe it's too late, you should have said something when you had the chance." He left Jim standing nonplussed and more than a little hurt in the hallway, retreating to the sanctuary of his own room, glad that his boss could not see how his scowl had so quickly morphed into a grin of utter triumph.

(It wasn't too late but it wouldn't hurt the little fucker to sit and stew for one more night.)


End file.
